Parkhouse Award presents Amatis Trio

The Amatis Trio won The Parkhouse Award in 2015, were then chosen for the BBC New Generation Artists scheme 2016-18 and are now ECHO Rising Stars giving performances worldwide.

They have always championed new music in addition to the well-loved existing repertoire and continue in this vein tonight. ‘Moorlands’ by the young Swedish composer, Andrea Tarrodi, was commissioned by ECHO and adds the piano trio to the extensive range of ensembles she writes for. In 2010, Tarrodi’s piece Zephyros for orchestra received 1st prize in the Uppsala Composition Competition, which led to several performances of the piece by different orchestras around the world. During 2011-2013 she was Radio Sweden P2’s composer-in-residence and in Spring 2012 she was appointed 'Composer of the Spring Season' in the Berwald Concert Hall. In that same year, Tarrodi received the Swedish MPA’s Classical Music Award of the Year–Chamber Music for her piece Empíreo for strings, harp and percussion.

Performances of piano trios by Brahms and Mendelssohn follow, both second trios for these composers, the former in C major and the latter in C minor. Brahms’s was written in the 1880s which was considered a most fruitful period for his chamber music and Mendelssohn, writing about his trio to sister Fanny, commented that it was ‘a trifle nasty to play, but not really difficult’. He dedicated it to one of the great musicians of the age, the composer and violinist Louis Spohr, who is known to have taken part in at least one performance with Mendelssohn himself at the piano.